Modern engines

[Seeker]

Someone on the XSR forum has just hit 100k miles and we know Gary passed that a while back.

My first car was a first gen Ford Escort with the "Kent" pushrod engine, at 65k miles it was smoking quite badly and required valve work to stop it. My 1976 VW Polo was on its second cylinder head when I bought it (didn't know that at the time) and immediately required another cylinder head (19k miles). Later it needed a new oil pump and crankshaft, it never made it to 100k miles. Later I had a first gen Ford Fiesta 1.3, drove nice, good mpg but was low on compression on one cylinder (just barely in spec) at 45k miles.

Modern engines have come a long way.

[garynortheast]

They certainly have. None of my old Brit bikes made it past 30,000 miles without needing attention, often a rebore and new pistons/rings. The blessing with the last one I owned, a 1952 BSA M21, was that I could tear down and re-assemble the engine in an afternoon.

Back in the mid 90s, we bought a late 80s Ford Fiesta. Simple pushrod, petrol engine with a carb and points. I sold that eventually at 220,000 miles, having done nothing more over our ownership than changing oil, plugs, filters, and adjusting tappets and points. Next was a normally aspirated Peugot 309 diesel. Can't remember the year, but it was totally reliable and got sold on with 320,000 miles on the clock. 3 months before selling it, I drove it, with the band and instruments all the way to Linz, in Austria, and back.

As far as bikes go though, my SV has been a revelation to me in terms of reliability and longevity. Heading for 106,000 miles now. I also recall someone on the forum buying a gen 2 SV with 130,000 miles on it, and it was running well still.

[Sir Trev]

I'm a great believer in changing the oil regularly to reduce potential wear as we all know its performance degrades as it picks up contaminants. My '83 GSX250EZ had 70k miles on it when a moron hit us and wrote it off. The engine was still excellent, although the electrics were a different story!

[redtrummy]

Apart from my first car all have made 100k plus. The one with reliability issues was a Rover 416 (head gasket and electrics) The best is our Civic 153k. Rot did them all apart from the Rover (lovely car to drive and body work absolutely fine) Even the Civic is now showing its years.
The old rear wheel drive were a breeze to work on, I lifted the engine and changed a piston over a weekend on the old push rod Escort (and I dont consider myself a spanner man by any means ). Think the Civic engine was computer aided to get it to fit, (dare not touch it) Its got an Isuzu diesel engine.